


Light the Way

by Etanseline



Category: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Genre: Community: darkfantasybingo, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Hallucinations, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etanseline/pseuds/Etanseline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Shadow lurks outside, but Brennenburg has plenty of its own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light the Way

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Освети путь](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3271919) by [morbid_overseer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morbid_overseer/pseuds/morbid_overseer)



> Written for darkfantasybingo, prompt "light", and hc_bingo, prompt "hallucinations".

They whisper such awful things.

The candles keep them away, but only at first. Dozens of them: then, when the nightmares creep into his waking hours, double and triple that. Daniel arrived at Brennenburg already on the brink of madness, Brennenburg with its guest room full of flammable decorations, heavy curtains, wooden furniture, lovely paintings. The louder the shadow howls for his blood, the more he dreams about tipping the brass candelabra on the writing desk and watching everything go to flames, burning brightly to ash.

He is never consumed. Dozens of candles; the drapery and shadows perch just beyond their light. Innumerable shadows; they whisper to him, turn the nights to torment, but by day he throws open the grand curtains and returns to sanity.

*

The days remain tolerable, but the nightmares worsen.

Alexander's servants don't seem to know what to think of him, how to approach, as he wanders through the castle by the first few hours of daylight, collecting a spare candle from a storage cabinet here, a spare tinderbox from a dead-end hallway there. Later, when he and Alexander return from the castle’s bowels, the candles help him fall asleep. He wakes screaming.

To Daniel’s embarrassment, the Baron attends to him personally, no matter the hour, and first appears in the guest room doorway after a particularly rough fit. Alexander is far more understanding than Daniel deserves, but as he goes to leave he pinches out the candles one by one. Too understanding, perhaps.

Daniel voices no protest. He is Daniel, checking Hazel's room for monsters before blowing out the final candle of the night. He is Daniel, a grown man and a scholar, trying to sleep under an African sky at high noon and cursing the light and heat. He is Daniel, and he is not afraid of the dark, especially not here, where the darkness conceals nothing but his own imaginings. Brennenburg has the shadow at bay, for now, and Brennenburg will eventually save him.

As the final candle winks out, Daniel reminds himself that the darkness of the room conceals only Alexander and himself. Footsteps from the writing desk to the bed: Alexander, walking. The heavy rustle of sheets and duvet: Alexander, sliding onto the bed. The old bedframe creaks: Alexander, moving to support the hand that strokes across Daniel's shoulder.

"There is no reason to be afraid," Alexander says. "We've made tremendous progress."

_But I_ am, _I am terrified, if I weren't I would never have done any of th—_ "I'm not afraid," Daniel says. His voice sends a strange echo through the dark. He is exhausted. Nothing makes sense. His limbs feel heavy. His voice and Alexander's are two of dozens, all but the Baron’s animalistic and raw; he cannot focus.

A heavy breath: Alexander, as though reacting to a child’s nightmare.

Alexander's hand strokes across the damp and matted hair on Daniel's forehead, then retreats. "You'll need plenty of sleep. We still have much to do."

Daniel does not sleep; he listens, because he deserves every word.

*

One of the servants brings laudanum and tea. For a time Daniel's fears become distant things; as he regains himself, reality creeps all the closer, and with it nightfall. He falls asleep in the parlour chair next to a roaring fire.

He wakes to a soft light, sweat cooling on his skin.

"Hush, Daniel. You'll wake the house." Daniel remembers, with sudden clarity, sitting in this chair to pick blood from his fingernails by the fire’s light. The fire has died down to embers. Something seizes in his chest, a desperate thing, and he turns to the lamp Alexander holds.

The lantern-light sharpens Alexander's disapproval.

"I'm sorry," Daniel says absently, attention captured by a brief movement in the hall: one of the servants, lingering too long in the doorway? The blood in his veins goes to ice, even as he blinks himself awake. He leans closer to the lantern. "I shouldn't be sleeping here," he says, with forced cheer, and makes no move to stand.

Alexander's expression yields. "Come. I will escort you."

They pass through the halls in a daze. Voices dog Daniel's steps: the dull roar that haunts him most, rising in chorus with the voices of those he has terrified and tortured, those sacrificed on his quest to learn more about the shadow: doctors chattering over terrified girls over the frightened voices of grown men, all shouting to be heard over a dull voice reading aloud from some ancient text. His own voice brings up the rear, whimpering and scared, but also taunting, jumping at shadows. The light does nothing to quiet them.

Bile rises in his throat, but his horror is dulled by exhaustion.

All of them dead, except for Alexander, himself, and the hunter, drawing ever closer.

*

"There is nothing to fear," Alexander reassures him. Alexander leaves the lantern on the desk, its light casting Daniel’s shadow on the walls as he roams, unable to find peace and hard-pressed to articulate why. His shadow keeps pace, copying his jerking, panicked steps.

Something crashes through the woods. The voices hush; his shadow lurks along the wall with purpose, converging with Daniel's hand as he reaches for the curtain. As Daniel parts the drapes it comes close, closer, through trees that just yesterday they had braved to bring home new subjects, limbs weighted by pink flesh in its wake. It stops at the wall, invisible despite the full moon.

Daniel draws the curtains.

The voices roar to life.

He stumbles to bed and watches, wild-eyed, until the lantern's flame gutters and goes out. But, of course, it makes no difference.

*

The servants watch him from the deep shadows of the castle's many hallways and rooms, bemused, but there is method to this madness: replacing candles to cubbyholes and random drawers, tucking jars of oil onto shelves, where perhaps they will do some good.


End file.
